LiU Electronic Press

This collection of conference papers examines the different narratives that museums have, since the beginning of the nineteenth century and up until the present day, developed as monuments to and of national histories. The aim has been to identify how narratives and their impact might have changed over time and more particularly how this can contribute to our understanding of how they might be changing today. The expression "great historical narratives" was chosen to avoid being tied down to the more ideologically specific defined notions "grand" and "master" narratives. Indeed, the perspective of these conferences was to consider the principles that have allowed the national museum to coherently present great histories in a literal sense – vast and spanning major chronological and geographical subjects. The collection places emphasis on the idea that narratives of the past are accounts based on the diversity of materials or factual sources used to illustrate them, constrained by conventions that bestow particular values or meaning upon them.

It is produced within the three-year research programme EuNaMus – European National Museums: Identity Politics, the Uses of the Past and the European Citizen, coordinated at Tema Q at Linköping University (www.eunamus.eu). EuNaMus explores the creation and power of the heritage created and presented by European national museums to the world, Europe and its states, as an unsurpassable institution in contemporary society. National museums are defined and explored as processes of institutionalized negotiations where material collections and displays make claims and are recognized as articulating and representing national values and realities. Questions asked in the project are why, by whom, when, with what material, with what result and future possibilities are these museums shaped.

The collection is based on the presentations made by researchers that came together from across Europe during two separate events organised by EuNaMus directed by Dominique Poulot at the University of Paris 1 Pantheon-Sorbonne: Great historical narratives in European museums (1750-2010): Building National, Looking across Borders and Remembering the Past, Paris, Institut national d’histoire de l’art, 29th of June to the 1st of July, 2011; Great historical narratives in Europe’s National Museums, CRRMF, Louvre and Institut national d’histoire de l’art, Paris, 25^th and 26^th of November 2011.

Contents

078:001
Dominique Poulot
Preface: Uses of the Past – Historical Narratives and the Museum
[Abstract and Fulltext]

078:002
Felicity Bodenstein, Dominique Poulot
Introduction
[Abstract and Fulltext]

Constructing Narratives in the Museum: Authors and Locations

The Authored Museum

078:003
Stephen Bann
Alternative Paradigms for the Historical Museum: Lenoir’s Monuments Français and Du Sommerard’s Cluny
[Abstract and Fulltext]

078:004
Magdalena Hillström
Nordiska museet and Skansen: Displays of Floating Nationalities
[Abstract and Fulltext]

078:005
Maria Gabriella Lerario
The National Museum of Prehistory and Ethnography “Luigi Pigorini” in Rome: the Nation on Display
[Abstract and Fulltext]

078:006
Gabriela Petkova-Campbell
Uses and Exploitation of History: Official History, Propaganda and Mythmaking in Bulgarian Museums
[Abstract and Fulltext]

The Importance of Place

078:007
Sylvain Cordier
Intimating History: (re)-furnishing Versailles for Louis-Philippe’s Musée d’Histoire de France (1834–1837)
[Abstract and Fulltext]

078:008
Constanze Breuer, Paul Kahl
National Museums as Memorial Places The Goethehaus Weimar and the Foundation of National Museums in 19th Century Germany
[Abstract and Fulltext]

078:009
Christina Ntaflou
The New Acropolis Museum and the Dynamics of National Museum Development in Greece
[Abstract and Fulltext]

Traditions of National Identity Constructions

National History

078:010
Ellinoor Bergvelt
Great Narratives or Isolated Statements? History in the Dutch National Museums (1800–1887)
[Abstract and Fulltext]

078:011
Despina Catapoti
A Nationalist Palimpsest: Authoring the History of the Greek Nation Through Alternative Museum Narratives
[Abstract and Fulltext]

078:012
Amy Clarke
From Royal to National: The Changing Face of the National Museum of Scotland
[Abstract and Fulltext]

078:013
Lill Eilertsen
Freedom Loving Northerners: Norwegian Independence As Narrated in Three National Museums
[Abstract and Fulltext]

078:014
Frank Matthias Kammel
The Germanisches Nationalmuseum in Nuremberg: The Cultural Memory of a Nation without National Borders
[Abstract and Fulltext]

078:015
Richard Pettersson
The Museum of National Antiquities in Sweden and its national agenda: an overview of the 1900-1970 period
[Abstract and Fulltext]

078:016
Melania Savino
Narrating the “New” History: Museums in the Construction of the Turkish Republic
[Abstract and Fulltext]

Colonialism and Ethnographic Narratives

078:017
Giovanni Arena
The City of the Colonial Museum: The Forgotten Case of the Mostra d’Oltremare of Naples
[Abstract and Fulltext]

078:018
Maria Anna Bertolino
Museology and ethnography in Italy: an historical perspective
[Abstract and Fulltext]

078:019
José María Lanzarote Guiral
Rediscovering the Americas: the making of Latin American archaeological collections in Spanish national museums
[Abstract and Fulltext]

078:020
Iulia Pohrib
Tradition and Ethnographic Display: Defining the National Specificity at the National Art Museum in Romania (1906–1937)
[Abstract and Fulltext]

078:021
Nikolai Vukov
Ethnoscripts and nationographies: imagining nations within ethnographic museums in East Central and Southern Europé
[Abstract and Fulltext]

Intersecting Authorities,Territories and Narratives

The Regional and the National

078:022
Nathalie Cerezales
Local religious art exhibitions, between heritage and evangelization: the case of Las Edades del Hombre
[Abstract and Fulltext]

078:023
Martin Sundberg
Representation and Regionalism: Moderna Museet and the Construction of a Narrative of Swedish Women Artists
[Abstract and Fulltext]

The National and the Universal

078:024
Gábor Ébli
Universal Culture and National Identity: The configuration of national museums in nineteenth-century Hungary
[Abstract and Fulltext]

078:025
Tiffany Jenkins
Inverting the Nation at the British Museum
[Abstract and Fulltext]

078:026
Miklós Székely
A National Historical Narrative in Universal Context – The Historical Mural Cycle of the Hungarian National Museum
[Abstract and Fulltext]

Transnational Narratives

078:027
Felicity Bodenstein
Musealizing Napoleon (1837–2011): From Traditional Representations to a Dualistic European Master Narrative
[Abstract and Fulltext]

078:028
Michela Passini
Historical Narratives of the Nation and the Internationalization of Museums: Exhibiting National Art Histories in the Jeu de Paume Museum between the Wars
[Abstract and Fulltext]

078:029
Andy Sawyer
Maritime master narratives in European national museums
[Abstract and Fulltext]

Social Uses of Memory, Contemporary and Critical Revisions

Revisiting Traditional Narratives or Contemporary Traditions

078:030
Johan Hegardt
Narrating a (New) Nation? Temporary exhibitions at the Museum of National Antiquities in Stockholm, Sweden between 1990 and 2009
[Abstract and Fulltext]

078:031
Annie Malama
Greek Modernism: A National Scenario. Experiences and Ideological Trajectories
[Abstract and Fulltext]

078:032
Pascale Meyer
Four narrative perspectives on Swiss history at the Swiss National Museum
[Abstract and Fulltext]

078:033
Dominique Poulot
Museums and History in Contemporary France
[Abstract and Fulltext]

078:034
Sheila Watson
Museums and the Origins of Nations
[Abstract and Fulltext]

Reconciling the Past

078:035
Péter Apor
Master Narratives of Contemporary History in Eastern European National Museums
[Abstract and Fulltext]

078:036
Thomas Cauvin
One Common Event, Two Distinct Narratives: Commemorative Displays in National Museums in Ireland and Northern Ireland in the 1990s
[Abstract and Fulltext]

Narratives and The Post-Colonial Era

078:037
Sigrid Lien, Hilde Nielssen
Conventional Ethnographic Display or Subversive Aesthetics? Historical Narratives of the Sami Museum, RiddoDuottarMuseat-Sámiid Vuorká-Dávvirat (RDM-SVD) in Karasjok, Norway
[Abstract and Fulltext]

078:038
Alexandra Galitzine-Loumpet
An Unattainable Consensus? National Museums and Great Narratives in French-speaking Africa
[Abstract and Fulltext]